"Team Spirit" And Bloody Assholes

A commentor at Hit & Run puts Jon Henke in his proper place:

"One of the problems libertarians have had is the "purity" issue. I've never seen a group of political activists so determined to kick people off the team."

Jon, your analogy is wanting. If you are willing to compromise the principles of libertarianism (and libertarianism is nothing if not an ideology derived rationally from clear principles), then nobody kicked you off the team. You were never on the team. You did not show up for practice.

Goddamned right. They are not "libertarians", and never were. Their presumption about "the team" is an utterly outrageous fraud.

It is appalling to me that Bruce McQuain is hanging out with these two rotten punks. Appalling. I've been reading him and discussing American politics with him for nearly fifteen years, and I would never have predicted this. It's obvious, I suppose, that I don't know what's going on in this aspect of the thing, but I regard it as quite tragic.

Bruce: if you read this, I'm telling you. You don't need those two. Unless, that is, there is some other value that you see in the association. What could it be? Exposure? If that's it, then I'm here to say that you could have done at least as well on your own. (And I might as well say it right out loud: I very much suspect that this is a great deal of the thing with them. They're only in it for the noise. They like it when Eminences quote them.) Do you really believe all this jazz they're touting?

If so, then I seriously misplaced a great deal of my confidence in you over the years.

That might not matter to you, but it's a big deal to me.